Monthly Archives: August 2009

The following is the code in the artwork to my 1971 album ‘Stormcock’. Some of you may find that this is too long, in which case, you shouldn’t trouble yourselves with it. Just let it pass. For the rest, I would like to welcome you here to hopefully enjoy one of my interpretations of the past-future that’s been with me for some considerable time now. In my own opinion, the album has lost none of its original potency, but I must leave that to be judged by yourselves and others. This is the definitive statement on it. There will not be another.

I doubt I will ever return to any of the matters treated below in the same way, by way of song. There won’t be any need to. The rest of my song-writing life will likely be spent in more poetic reflection. In some ways, this album, together with much of my recorded self, has dominated my life to an extent that has been, ok, natural, because of the way I’m built and have built myself, and the way that it’s therefore become natural for me to view the world, but that particular stylus perhaps needs to be traded for a new lamp. My response to the world isn’t going to change, but my representation of it is likely to require slightly different expressions and intentions to surface. Good luck everyone.

Hors D’Oeuvres

By the time I was 4 I’d become a judge. My general behaviour was loose and wild, mainly because I was learning to test all the limits. I’d started to write when I was 3. The reason I remember this is that on my first day in kindergarten, our teacher was trying to get the kids to write ABC with chalk on our little slates. I already knew ABC, so I decided that I’d be different and roll up some plasticine and stick it onto the slate in the shape of the letters. All that got me was a smack. So the history of roy begins with a smack on his first day at school. He was consequently forced into making a premature judgement.